WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK: Facebook is setting its sights on pre-teens

Facebook has been talking to the Federal Government about plans to let children under the age of 13 use its social-networking website, a move which raises tricky issues of marketing to pre-teens.

Facebook’s Terms of Service have a minimum age of 13 for anyone setting up an account, but the social network has talked to the Federal Government about the potential for under-13s to access Facebook.

Such a move will allow Facebook to tap the demographic for new revenue, but marketing experts warn that when it comes to any form of marketing to children, there is a high degree of sensitivity involved.

What IPV6 is and when you need to worry about it?

When IPv6 launched yesterday morning you probably noticed no change to your internet service.

That’s as it should be.

The reason for switching to IPv6 is simple – the internet is running out of IP addresses.

An IP address is like a phone number for your computer.

Each device that connects to the internet needs one. Up until now we’ve been using IPv4, which had 4.3 trillion addresses. But we’ve run out as increasingly more people and more devices plug in to the World Wide Web.

IPv6 will solve the problem indefinitely by creating another 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses.

Regular internet users will notice absolutely no difference in their service as internet service providers will switch them over automatically. However, in a few years time, a new modem may be necessary as ISPs move to IPv6.

It’s never too late to get your business online

Sports shoe franchise The Athlete’s Foot has finally opened an online store in a move to fight back against online overseas retailers.

The chairman of franchisor RCG Corporation – which owns and operates The Athlete’s Foot – told SmartCompany the shoe retailer had left its move online a little late and admitted it had been “caught flat-footed”.

The Athlete’s Foot is hoping consumers will use its website because it is a brand they trust. Although it admits its competitors have a first-mover advantage and that it will be unable to match other stores on price.

The shoe retailer is expecting its online store to make up 5% of its revenue “pretty fast” and RCG’s other franchise, Shoe Superstore makes in excess of 10% to 15% of its revenue online.

Top-level domain names have been rejected by Australian businesses for being too pricey

Australian businesses and organisations have shunned new top-level domain names, with the majority of the names likely to go to international companies in the first round of global allocation.

The high cost of the application fee – $185,000 – for one of the new internet domain names which incorporates a brand appears to have dissuaded Australian companies from applying.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has announced that the names of all 1,900 applicants and the domains they are going after will be revealed on June 13.

In Australia, the Australian Football League has already revealed it is seeking .afl and internet service provider iiNet is trying to secure its own domain.

Melbourne IT and ARI Registry Services, part of the AusRegistry group, have been acting as agents for 307 organisations looking to secure a domain name.

However, only a quarter of the 146 applications Melbourne IT has processed are for Australian businesses and organisations.